Do you consider yourself on-top of your finances? Do you only shop sales, limit dinners-out and mostly bring your lunch to work? If yes, sounds like you’re on the road to getting your financial ducks in a row. But are you making these four money mistakes? Continue Reading…

Sloan Hemmer (photo above) discusses the REAL reason you can’t seem to lose those last few pounds.

One of THE most common question/complaints I hear in my job as physical trainer is, “I can’t lose those last 5-10 pounds”. Issues and frustrations you may be having with your fitness regimen most often, like 99.9% of the time, stem from your diet and not what you are or aren’t doing in the gym.

Here is the situation, you are dedicated, you workout and you workout hard. You have been a good student and have stuck with it but you aren’t seeing the results you want. I can’t say it more profoundly than this, so I’ll put it in bold letters;) you are eating too much and possibly not eating the good stuff that will get you there.

Here are my tips for breaking fitness plateaus and dropping those last 5-10 pounds.

Eat Clean

This means drinking lots and lots of water, eating lean proteins, healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables of all different colors with all different kinds of texture, eating complex carbohydrates, nuts and seeds. DITCH most of the processed foods with refined sugars and eliminate white carbohydrates. . OK, don’t panic, you can slowly reintroduce small portions of your favorites, once you’ve lost the weight.

Journal

I can’t impress upon you how important this is especially if you have specific weight loss and fitness goals. If you like to write, get a pen and paper and write down every morsel that passes your lips along with how much you are exercising. If you are on the go, there are several great apps; my favorite is My Fitness Pal.It is convenient, doesn’t take much time and has a lot of great tools to assist you.

Set Goals

This is crucial to your success! Write them down and revisit them on a daily basis. This isn’t a hobby-it’s your life. Step up. Create a vision board with your desired weight – don’t stop looking at it –until you see it on the scale. Set short-term goals (week/months) and long-term goals (1 year or longer).

Change it up

When it comes to your fitness regimen you won’t make the gains you want to if you are constantly doing the same thing. Change is important and change keeps you from getting bored. You might actually discover something you love to do and just never knew it! Try a class, go outside, buddy up or incorporate interval training!

According to the financial gurus at LearnVest a rainy day emergency fund should have at least six months of net income in it. If we haven’t scared you yet, keep reading.

Don’t worry, setting a rainy day fund up is easier thank you think and just takes some time and a little self control.

1. Follow the 50-30-20 rule.
2. About 50 percent of your income is for living expenses (think rent, groceries, gas, insurance).
3. About 30 percent of your income is for having fun (think shopping, dinners out with friends, more shopping).
4. About 20 percent of your income is for savings – retirement, rainy day and paying off any debts.

With this formula, if you make $50,000 per year you’ll be saving about $10,000 in your retirement/rainy day/debt bucket — $833 before taxes.

With your $833 this is how you’ll split it up.

1. If your work offers a 401k matching be sure to put the minimum amount to have your employer match in your 401k. In this $50,000 per year scenario let’s assume that the person is putting away $100 per month in a 401k or Roth IRA. With $733 left in the bucket split it equally between paying off your credit card debt and putting money into a savings account for a rainy day fund until you have about six months saved. No credit card debt (you are amazing) just contribute that whole amount to the emergency fund.

When are you allowed to take from the rainy day fund (hint, it’s not at Nordstrom’s semi-annual sale).